On Second Thought for Wednesday, July 6, 2016

One of the first signs of autism in infants is the delay of what's known as babbling. Babbling is exactly what it sounds like: indiscernible words of jumbled consonants and vowels strung together. It's adorable when babies do it, but it’s also an important stage of language development. Gordon Ramsay, a doctor at the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta, has collected the largest database of baby babbles. We speak with Dr. Ramsay about how these recordings could help parents prevent a child from becoming nonverbal.

Then, what influences a new mother’s decision to breastfeed her baby? How much of a role do race, culture and tradition influence that thought process? Breastfeeding rates are significantly lower among African-American mothers compared with white and Hispanic mothers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We examine how different populations commonly respond when faced with the option to breastfeed a child with two health experts and an artist who are charged with understanding the challenges to child rearing faced by minority communities. We talk with Betsy Collins of Emory University Hospital Midtown, playwright Anita Woodley, and Andrea Serano of Reaching Our Sisters Everywhere Inc. The decision to breastfeed is a highly personal one, but so is the decision to become pregnant. And more women are waiting later in life to have children. That's where fertility treatment can be a valuable resource, but research by the Fertility Center at New York University finds 80 percent of women who froze their eggs during a six-year period were white. Four percent were black. Atlanta fertility specialist Desireé McCarthy-Keith says it's time for that to change. 

 We speak with Gordon Ramsay, a doctor at the Marcus Autism Center in Atlanta, about babbling: one of the first signs of autism in infants. Then, we discuss what influences a new mother's decision to breastfeed her baby. Also, Atlanta fertility specialist Desireé McCarthy-Keith tells us why it's to diversity fertility treatments. Plus, Georgia native and crime writer Karin Slaughter speaks with us about her latest book "Pretty Girls."

Plus, Georgia native and crime writer Karin Slaughter is the author of several international best-sellers. Her latest book "Pretty Girls" is about two women whose teenage sister vanished without a trace. The paperback edition of the book came out in May. We speak with Slaughter about the inspiration for the book, what makes a good thriller, and the reason why she sets her novels in Georgia.